96,000 ACRES OF UNOCCUPIED LAND IN BAY OF PLENTY AREA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 70, 19 July 1948, Page 6

96,000 ACRES OF UNOCCUPIED LAND IN BAY OF PLENTY AREA

(Special to Beacon) What did the Minister of Lands propose to do with the 96,000 acres of unoccupied Crown land in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty areas? asked Mr W. Sullivan (National, Bay of Plenty), speaking in the House of Representatives in the Address-in-Reply debate. What did he propose to do with the 100,000 acres of Native land unoccupied in the same area? x We have sufficient of what we may call lighter pumice land in the Ro-torua-Taupo area to make about 650 farms. All that land is locked away from the young men who seek farms of their own, from the farmer who sells out and wants another place, and indeed from everyone who could use that type of land. We find that the Government is taking properties right and left for subdivision while deliberately neglecting the settlement of the land which it already holds and which it has a duty to develop. “If the Native land is to be closed up continuously, as it now is, we shall have nothing there but an ever increasing mass of weeds. The Government should offer the land to young men, especially those with a certain amount of finance or financial backing from their own people. Let the Government give such yourig men a section free for five years conditional upon a certain amount of capital expenditure in that period, at the end of which time the rental could be fixed. In that way those areas could be developed and new settlements created and our primary production for export could be substantially increased. If that lighter land is to be developed the superphosphate subsidy must be reinstated, for farmers on that type of land cannot afford to pay £l2 or £l4 a ton. If that land is to remain locked up because of Government policy how are we to progress and how are we to get the exports we desire. Let me ask the Government once more to reconsider its policy towards Crown and and Native land.”